The future of The Legend of Zelda is a battlefield again.

Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma made waves recently when he questioned why fans would want to return to more linear gameplay after having complete freedom with Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

“Well, I do think we as people have a tendency to want the thing that we don’t currently have, and there’s a bit of a grass is greener mentality,” Aonuma said during an interview with IGN. 

“But I also think that with the freedom players have in the more recent games in the series…there still is a set path, it just happens to be the path that they chose. So I think that that is one thing I kind of like to remind myself about the current games that we’re making.”

There have been many fans who lament the departure from the set linear dungeons the series was famous for throughout its history.

On the flip side, I also see the point of Breath of the Wild being what Shigeru Miyamoto always envisioned The Legend of Zelda being given that the original game was an open world of sorts. 

I don’t think the series can completely go back to its Ocarina of Time roots in terms of linearity. Both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were the franchise’s best-selling games.

Money talks so we can expect the developers to continue on this path. That said, I don’t think the franchise should completely stay on this path forward. 

As much as I enjoyed both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, I felt like the lack of dungeons looms large. Sure, there were stopgaps in both games, but they lacked what made their predecessors so good.

That’s where The Wind Waker comes in.

The Wind Waker provides an excellent template for combining an open world with fully realized dungeons.

The Great Sea acts as an open hub world that the player can explore to their heart’s content. That said, there’s not much to see here and many of the islands are lackluster. Still, you get a lot of freedom pretty early on. The story itself is linear, but there are fully realized dungeons that play a role in the plot.

Yes, Tears of the Kingdom had this and the dungeons were better than its predecessor, but they weren’t the same.

The Wind Waker gives you the format of providing realized dungeons/temples while also giving you room to explore. Building on this idea allows you to embrace the openness while still providing a bit of linearity through dungeons.

Again, The Wind Waker has its flaws and many points that wouldn’t work in this format. That said, I think it provides the best foundation for the franchise. 

Think about it, if you took The Wind Waker’s format and cut out all narrative linearity in favor of an open path, added a few more realized dungeons, and skipped the Triforce Shard quest, you would have a game similar to Tears of the Kingdom just without shrines.

I am not an expert on this so I defer to the Zelda team, but I think there’s a good foundation to build on moving forward. 

But what do you think? Where would you like to see the Zelda franchise go post Tears of the Kingdom? How would you mix the traditional style with the open-world style? Let us know in the comments below or head over to our Discord channel to join the conversation.

Featured Image: Nintendo (via GameSpot)

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